Foreword

Foreword to the book 'Gender equality and representation within and beyond the University of the Highlands and Islands : A book in celebration of International Women’s Day 2021

Popular culture as pedagogy in the political theory classroom: reflections from higher education

Political theory, with its abstract reasoning and unfamiliar vocabulary, is a subject that students are often apprehensive about. Whilst popular culture has been employed extensively in the teaching of other areas of political science, such as international relations, I seek to draw attention to its comparative under-use in political theory and argue that it is a highly effective teaching tool for this subject. I use the autoethnographic method to make my case, drawing on my years-long experience in the university classroom, and take this position for three key reasons: the familiar nature of popular culture allows students to more easily acclimate to the political theory classroom, it renders abstract political theory concrete, and provides a useful arena in which to better test the logic of political theory arguments, enhancing student criticality

Accessible, transparent, progressive: conceptualising the militarisation of digital space through the social media presence of arms manufacturers

Arms sales cause serious harm and the public is – on some level – aware of this, yet their sale continues apace. Militarisation is the engendering of support for war, broadly understood, and this includes the manufacture/sale of weapons. This article examines the Twitter feeds of three large US arms manufacturers: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman (as part of a larger project where approximately 900 tweets were examined). It argues that productive tensions of exposure (knowing) and revelation (societal acknowledgement) engender militarisation within arms manufacturers’ Twitter feeds. It finds that arms manufacturers represent themselves as accessible/transparent through regular updates and high volumes of information. They also distract from the violence of their products by presenting themselves as drivers of human progress, which occurs in social, environmental and technological dimensions. Taken as a whole, the representations of accessibility and distracting content on social media function to facilitate the arms trade in this case

Toys, teams and toughness: a comparative analysis of army recruitment advertising

This article provides a comparative analysis of US and UK army recruitment video advertising found on Youtube. The analytical framework, adapted from Frank Barrett’s (1996) ‘The Organizational Construction of Hegemonic Masculinity: The Case of the US Navy,’ is utilized in conjunction with a discourse analytic approach in order to establish the extent to which the advertising in the dataset is gendered, and in what ways. The conclusion reached is that the US and the UK army recruitment advertisements are gendered, each featuring several different types of army masculinity, and varying degrees, of masculinity. There were two key differences: the portrayal of women (more stereotypical in UK advertising), and networks (more emphasis on the army as a family in US advertising)

Society and Learning Research Priority Area - Research share September 2021

The session, held in September 2021, is an introduction to the work of Society and Leaning Research Priority Area (RPA), in which we examine the nature and role of the RPA as well as the ways in which it supports research in the university. The largest part of the event is an opportunity for staff to share a slide on their research, including the focus of the work, ongoing and potential projects, and opportunities for others to get involved

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

Twitter as higher education community of practice: a political science perspective

A community of practice is where a group works together, towards a shared goal. This article argues that Twitter hosts a community of practice within political science and international relations. This occurs in three key ways: offering us an area to share our feelings about our role as educators, connecting us to a wider network of educators in our discipline (and other educators), and providing a space to proffer practical support. This is especially true due to the current COVID19 pandemic, when many educators are delivering their teaching remotely and potentially feeling cut off from colleagues and students at their institution. In more normal times, Twitter also offers a valuable means of connecting with other scholars in the discipline, across the world, acting as a space to learn from and support each other. The article finishes by reflecting on what this might mean for continued professional development in the discipline

Digital Decay and the Global Politics of Virtual Infrastructure

My work is based on the analysis of digital data. I began my PhD with an interest in the representation of identity and international security within online news, examining articles from the mainstream British press. I would carefully collect the URL for each article and dutifully put all of these in my reference. After my PhD, I stayed in the same vein, moving towards the examination of social media data. I came to this through a desire to look at the social media posts of arms manufacturers. I noticed that they had accounts on Twitter and thought that it would be be interesting to examine what they were saying and how. I began this project soon after submitting my PhD in 2019. The landscape is somewhat different now, and it is in this context that I reflect upon the issue of digital decay and the global politics of virtual archives, as well as key methodological issues of data preservation